


this black and white photo don't capture the skin

by secretfeanorian



Series: the worst things in life come free to us [9]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2014-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-24 05:04:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1592627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretfeanorian/pseuds/secretfeanorian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it's hard for Maglor to remember that his familly, for all their flaws, were good people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this black and white photo don't capture the skin

_Life is multifaced. Neither black nor white, but with many shades inbetween. Heroes can do bad things. Monsters can have moments of virtue.  
_

* * *

The world isn’t black and white and never has been and never will be. This Maglor knows. How could he forget it? He calls family one of the groups that was put into one of these categories a long time ago. Because he is a feanorian, he was shamed and told he should be ashamed and for the longest time, he was. He looked down on himself and saw only the evil things hissed by people hatefully and forgot to see the good in himself and in his family that those people denied existed.  
  
He overcame it, but it didn’t happen for thousands and thousands of years. He had lost himself, completely and utterly and it took him so long to regain himself. He still sees himself and his family in a light that has been tainted by that twisted belief, but he’s learning to ignore what the world has said and is saying.  
  
It’s hard and some days are better than other days, but Maglor is no longer allowing himself to not think about something if he doesn’t want to. Instead of shoving down all thoughts of his older brother when memories of people speaking badly of him come up, he calls up memories of Maedhros that disprove what they are saying. For every bad thing said about one of his brothers, he has at least one good thing to replace it with.  
  
When he unwillingly thinks of Maedhros’ brutality, he thinks instead of how he had searched fruitlessly for weeks for Eluréd and Elurín.  
  
When he remembers Celegorm’s attempt to force Lúthien into marriage, he instead thinks of how his blond brother would – even as an adult – spend hours sitting with an injured animal (or brother), attending to whatever need arose.  
  
When he hears people calling Caranthir cruel and harsh, he pushes them aside with memories of the middle brother’s gentle understanding of sorrow and grief.  
  
When a memory comes up that labels Curufin as dark and twisted and emotionless, he remembers his younger brother sobbing quietly in his room all alone after his son had disowned him. That memory cuts him straight to the core, but that pain reminds him that his younger brother had not been emotionless.  
  
There aren’t many bad things in his head for either of his twin brothers – none for Amras – but whenever one does pop up calling Amrod anything unkind in the slightest, he calls to mind the screaming that still haunts his dreams every so often and the voice shuts itself right back up.  
  
Harder, is drowning out the voice that points an accusing finger at him, but he manages. He spared and raised Elrond and Elros. That has to count for something. Most days, he just mentally points at his past and thinks _how can my crimes cry for more punishment then what I have received?_ and the accusation goes away.  
  
For the talk of Feanor’s heartlessness, he directs his thoughts to each and every time his father had ever put aside everything he was doing to make sure one or more of his sons knew they were loved. For memories of Feanor’s carelessness, he thinks of his father carefully teaching Curufin his craft, or of the harp he had treasured for centuries that Feanor had spent weeks making after he had begun to express an interest in music. For every voice that screams for Feanor’s head, he rebuffs them with the terror he had felt when Feanor had disappeared after his father’s murder; that maybe he would lose his father just as Feanor had lost his.  
  
Every time he feels like he should be ashamed of his family, he shouts to the sky “I am not ashamed of my family and I never will be again and you can never make me,” and each time he says this, a little more conviction of its truth grows in his heart. Every time he says it, it takes a little bit longer for the voice to come creeping back in.  
  
He’s filled stacks of notebooks with hastily written stories of his family, of each time something good or memorable happened. He doesn’t read through them very often, but he finds most of the time, he doesn’t need to. The memories are as clear as ever in his mind and he doesn’t know why he feels the need to write every little thing down so strongly. He thinks it probably has something to do with him being afraid that one day he will wake up to find his memory has left him again. He doesn’t honestly think that that is a likely possibility, but he can’t stop the nagging worry any other way. So he continues to write everything down anyway.  
  
If he stops to think about it (which he doesn’t very often), his memories are quite possibly the clearest they have been since Valinor. The reason he doesn’t think about this often is because that it also causes him to think about just exactly how long it has been. It’s been long enough that he’s older than Asgard, he reminds himself, but that doesn’t make him feel better for fairly obvious reasons.  
  
There’s a pretty good reason he doesn’t think about how long ago it was when his memories were last as clear as they are now, to keeps things simple. If he has to think about it, he tries to spend as little time doing so as possible. It doesn’t always work, but most times it does.  
  
Every notebook, for all the messy handwriting they contain, is carefully numbered, titled and stored. Somewhere in his head, there’s a voice that sounds like Celegorm jokingly him an organization freak and he shoots it right back out loud before he has time to stop and think about what he’s saying. When that does happen, he doesn’t dwell on it, despite habit and so instinct saying he should, and goes back to doing whatever he had been doing.  
  
He knows Celegorm wouldn’t resent him for any of it, but that unsurprisingly doesn’t help with the problem at all really. Sometimes, it only makes things worse, but those are the bad days and they come less and less often as time goes by. He’s not where he should be regarding his feelings on his family, but bit by bit he’s getting there.  
  
 _The world is not only in black and white_ , he reminds himself daily. _Nothing is simply black or white_ , he adds later on. If the world was only in black and white, then his family definitely would not be the good parts of the picture, but the world is not a black and white place and everything and everyone is more complicated than the world would like to pretend they are. _Never believe what the world says and never say what the world believes as they would say it_ , he thinks and decides to stick to that.  
  
His family did some terrible things, yes, but they were human (so to speak) and they were far from emotionless. He remembers this on the bad day and so they slowly become the good days.


End file.
